Prairie Portraits is a weekly set of questions intended to help the community get to know someone from the Silicon Prairie startup scene a little bit better. Prairie Portraits feature a fixed set of questions ranging from career background and personal perferences to, perhaps, off-the-wall questions on YouTube videos and entrance music.
Name: Rae Hatfield
Title/Occupation: Student & Athena League co-founder
Age: 21
Hometown: Kansas City, Missouri
Current city: Kansas City, Kansas
Twitter: @rhtfld
Personal
Title of my autobiography: “What’s Your Story?”
Thing I can’t live without: My iPad and the Kindle app. I swore I didn’t need an iPad for the longest time. Now that I have one I have no idea how I lived so long without it. I’ve read so many more books because of it and the Kindle app + Amazon.
Drink of choice: Red wine and coffee—but not together 😉
Last book I read: “Love Does” by Bob Goff
Ultimate road trip snack: Beef jerky and Starburst
Entrance song if I was a wrestler: “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor
Celebrity doppelgänger: People always say the girl from The Office (Ellie Kemper as Erin).
Guilty pleasure band and/or film: Bowling for Soup
Chosen career in an alternate reality: Pilot—travel perks!
Worst OCD tendency: Taking screenshots of things I want to remember on my phone.
Quote I might have said: “Where’s the nearest food truck?”
Which actor or actress, and why: The Olsen Twins, but only when they were in Full House
Favorite YouTube video: Justin Timberlake’s hashtag video. I can’t hashtag anything without thinking of him.
Thanks to our sponsor
Local
Best place in Kansas City no one knows about: Fervere
Kansas City’s obligatory tourist stop: Manifesto
One thing Kansas City has that other Silicon Prairie cities don’t: Google Fiber
Best thing going for Kansas City’s startup community: Our people are invaluable.
Last local restaurant I ate at: Quay. Coffee is a food group, right?
Best meal I’ve had in Kansas City: Pig & Finch
Kansas City would be better if… we had mountains and more rain.
The Startup Scene
Social media pet peeve: People asking people out on LinkedIn.
App I’m obsessed with: VSCO + Instagram
Silicon Prairie startup crush: Boys Grow—I just love what they’re doing.
Most comfortable startup T-shirt I own: All Big conference shirts—hello, American Apparel.
Something most people don’t know about me: I’m actually an introvert.
Entrepreneur I most want to grab a drink with: Shauna Niequist. I’d just like to split a bottle of red wine and chat about her books.
I do what I do because… I just really love people. Talking to people, connecting people, hearing their stories.
Before I was in startups… I was in college. I was an intern. Startups are all I know.
If money wasn’t an object, my next company would be… teaching women in developing countries about entrepreneurship or booking speakers for a conference series. Hopefully both.
The Silicon Prairie startup scene is missing… more female founders!
In five years, I’ll… be a community manager for a social startup that I founded.
In five years, the Silicon Prairie… will have small monthly dinners in each city so entrepreneurs can get together more often and connect on a smaller scale.
Credits: Photo courtesy of Rae Hatfield. Head shot from Google+.
